Is it an economist? Is it a lawyer? No, it’s Simon Duffin, Press Officer for the European Parliament UK Information Office and the first of our two speakers at this very timely seminar on the EU legislative processes and policy priorities for 2004.

One of Simon’s main duties is to assist the European Parliament (EP) in drafting its position on pieces of European legislation. The main power of the EP in this regard is its involvement in the co-decision procedure, the core of the European legislative process. Simon began by explaining the role of the EP in the legislative process and took us through the steps in the process towards agreeing a piece of European legislation.

The co-decision procedure involves “co-decision” between the European Commission, Council of Ministers (Council) and EP. Simon talked us through the process which begins with the European Commission sending a piece of proposed legislation to the EP and Council for its “first reading”. A “second reading” follows if the legislation is not agreed at first reading (and only a quarter of all proposed legislative measures are agreed at first reading). The second reading must be carried out within 4 months of the first reading and half of all proposals are decided at this stage. Those that do not proceed straight to the Official Journal (some 22%) then proceed to the “conciliation” stage within 6 to 8 weeks of the second reading. Conciliation is a way of obtaining agreement on a piece of legislation between the Council and EP. It involves reaching agreement through the discussion and amendment of contentious points in the legislation. To date, no measure has failed to be agreed by at conciliation, but if a proposal is not agreed, the whole proposal falls. Once a measure has been agreed at conciliation, it proceeds to its third and final reading.

Simon then went on to explain the composition of the EP and Council and the 17 internal and 3 external Parliamentary Committees that make up the EP together with the head of each Committee, the “Rapporteur” who takes responsibility for a particular issue. Some useful tips were also given on how to lobby the EU institutions about a piece of legislation, noting that good timing is key to effective lobbying.

Simon also gave a useful overview of turnout at European elections, citing “voter-fatigue” as a factor in low voter turnout. A quick look at the number of the 732 EP seats allotted to each EU member state provided a helpful view of the numbers of seats relative to country size. For example, Germany has the most seats at 99, the UK, Italy and France each have 78 seats and Malta has 5. The division of political groups in the EP also shows some interesting statistics: the two large groups of (broadly) conservative and labour are similar in size to the sum of the other groups, meaning that two separate political groups must negotiate politically to secure a majority decision of MEPs: an indication of the maneuvering required to secure a win.

Some useful website resources were indicated at the end of Simon’s talk. We all know how difficult it can be to navigate the Europa website, so Simon gave us the relevant website addresses for the EP, the UK Office of the European Parliament (providing less EU-speak and more UK-speak!) and a brief look at the helpful pages that provide easily-digestible information on the EU Constitution.

Sarah Lambert, Head of Network Support Services at the European Commission, is the UK contact for information providers in the regions. Sarah also noted that the seminar was very timely, as the new set of European Commissioners had just taken office the previous day (22 November 2004) and the Queen’s Speech had just been delivered.

Sarah began by telling us a bit about the make-up of the new Commission, whose mandate runs until 2009. The Commission is much bigger since the Accession Countries joined the EU in May 2004, and now there is one Commissioner for each of the 25 member states of the EU. Although some Commissioners are new, many of the previous members remain, with some re-jigging of responsibilities. Sarah noted that more women than ever are members of the Commission, a fact that was appreciated by our all-female audience (Simon, by this time, had dashed off to the Royal Albert Hall for singing rehearsals)! Heading up this Commission is José-Manuel Barroso, Prime Minister of Portugal, a well-known politician who is expected to stamp his authority on the Commission and help drive forward its priorities for the coming years.

Moving onto those priority policy areas, the Commission is focusing on the two areas of Competition and Justice and Home Affairs.

Within the area of Competition, Sarah noted that economic reform is crucial. Particular areas for the Commission to focus on are state aid, regional development research and development aid, environment, telecoms and energy. These are all areas that can be heavily legislated for, and significantly, Sarah noted that the Commission can act alone in the area of competition policy, without input from the EP or Council.

One of the fastest developing areas of Commission competence, Justice and Home Affairs is an integral part of developing the single market and promoting free movement. Particular areas of Commission focus here are a common asylum policy, visa policy and police responsibilities, all of which require a common approach that can work on a pan-European basis.

Sarah wrapped-up with an overview of policy priorities for the coming years: simplification, consolidation, better regulation, communication and finding non-legislative solutions where possible.

The UK takes Presidency of the Commission in July 2005… it will certainly be interesting to see how far the Commission’s policy priorities have proceeded by then.

Many thanks to Janet Horslen for organising such an interesting and valuable event and to the European Commission London offices for hosting the event and providing such excellent speakers.